Indiana: The Holy War of the Left

Today’s Indianapolis Star front page uses the headline approach usually reserved for war. Because that’s what this is: culture war, and the mainstream media, as a vital part of the progressive movement, is waging total war for a cause they believe is holy. I’m not exaggerating. To most of the media, there is no other side in the gay marriage debate, or on anything to do with gay rights. There is only Good and Evil. And so we have the spectacle of a moral panic that makes a party that is a chief beneficiary of the First Amendment — a newspaper — taking unprecedented steps to suppress a party that is the other chief beneficiary of the First Amendment: religious dissenters. In my experience, it is impossible to overstate how sacred this cause is to American elites, especially journalists.

If you thought this was ever about fairness, justice, tolerance, or reason, you now ought to have had your eyes opened.

Malloy’s act, like the Indy Star‘s, are characteristic of liberalism’s unhinged reaction to Indiana’s law. If you are not watching this and seeing the future of religious liberty in this country, if you are not observing and taking note of the power the Establishment — political, media, big business — is deploying to crush a law that even a pro-gay liberal like Boston University’s Stephen Prothero says is a fair and necessary measure to support a fundamental liberal value (religious freedom), and if you are not thinking about the Supreme Court and the next presidential election — if you are not watching and learning, you are a fool.

Ross Douthat is watching, and as he wrote a while back, all that’s left is to negotiate the terms of our surrender. We now see that the left is not content to win the culture war; they’re going to shoot the prisoners and bounce the rubble. In a blog post, he puts some questions to liberals, to clarify where they’re planning to take this thing next. Among them:

1) Should religious colleges whose rules or honor codes orcovenants explicitly ask students and/or teachers to refrain from sex outside of heterosexual wedlock eventually lose their accreditation unless they change the policy to accommodate gay relationships? At the very least, should they lose their tax-exempt status, as Bob Jones University did over its ban on interracial dating?

2) What about the status of religious colleges and schools or non-profits that don’t have such official rules about student or teacher conduct, but nonetheless somehow instantiate or at least nod to a traditional view of marriage at some level — in the content of their curricula, the design of their benefit package, the rules for their wedding venues, their denominational affiliation? Should their tax-exempt status be reconsidered? Absent a change in their respective faith’s stance on homosexuality, for instance, should Catholic high schools or Classical Christian academies or Orthodox Jewish schools be eligible for 501(c)3 status at all?

Ross further says:

One of the difficulties in this discussion, from a conservative perspective, is that the definition of “common sense” and “compromise” on these issues has shifted so rapidly in such a short time: Positions taken by, say, the president of the United States and most Democratic politicians a few short years ago are now deemed the purest atavism, the definition of bigotry gets more and more elastic, and developments that social liberals would have described as right-wing scare stories in 2002 or so are now treated as just the most natural extensions of basic American principles. (Rod Dreher calls this the “law of merited impossibility,” in which various follow-on effects of same-sex marriage are dismissed as impossible until they happen, at which point it’s explained that of course they were absolutely necessary.)

Understand the propaganda war here: things that were supported the day before yesterday by many on the mainstream left have now become “hate,” and their former positions have gone down the memory hole, shamelessly. It is by now clear that nothing is impossible with the left on this issue, because they have adopted the kind of scorched-earth attitude that scared so many of them when Barry Goldwater voiced it in 1964. The left’s version: “Extremism in defense of gay rights is no vice.”

Religious and social conservatives had better wake up and recognize the stakes playing out in Indiana right now. The people who hate us don’t want compromise. They want total victory, no matter how it tears this country up, and no matter how it eviscerates what was once a sacred value in this country: freedom of religion.

And watch the Republican Party’s presidential candidates. Jeb Bush and others have, thankfully, come out in defense of Indiana’s law. But nine Indiana CEOs have issued a letter to Gov. Mike Pence demanding that he change the RFRA. This is a time of testing of GOP leadership mettle, as the party’s business wing and its social-values wing clash. The Republican Party has got to stand firm for an American value as fundamental as religious liberty against the left’s witch-hunting hysteria.

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184 Responses to Indiana: The Holy War of the Left

Imposing travel bans and withdrawing business from companies like Salesforce, which is really the backbone of ecommerce outside Amazon, are extremely heavy-handed responses. And we went through this same apocalyptic freak-out with Hobby Lobby as well, the common thread being legal protection for religion.

In both cases there are ultimately small disagreements, how do you decide if a religious belief is sincere so that you limit abuse? If there is homosexuality is not a protected class, then discrimination against gays is possible. These problems will likely not offset the good done by the laws, because the number of abuse cases have a very low upper bound, and because you can always pass nondiscrimination statutes protecting homosexuals separately or simply wait for the Supreme Court to issue that verdict this year.

I say these are small disagreements, because on the premise of the law, how to protect religious freedom in our legal system, it seems to get it right. There must be a “compelling government interest” that cannot be achieved without substantially burdening religious exercise. And it allows individuals the use of the courts to determine the validity of those claims. It has a broad definition of personhood, but it is not defensible to only grant religious freedom if you maintain nonprofit status, which is not dispositive proof that an entity is not religiously motivated in some sense. So, on its own terms as a religious freedom bill, this looks fine to my eyes.

But the message given is quite clear, any legally established space to oppose the exercise of liberal morality on religious grounds will be met with extreme, propagandized hostility.

That’s a mischaracterization. Let’s put aside the fact that Indiana does not appear to include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination law (which, while central to the analysis of Indian’s RFRA, really isn’t that big of a problem because IN will include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination law within the next five years). The Indiana statute is a state RFRA intended to make it clear that a business can avail itself of the RFRA when a non-state party claims that the exercise of a religious persons religious belief violates a generally applicable law. Clearly some discrimination by businesses is allowed under the Indiana law. Pence knows it and anyone in the Indiana legislature who read the bill knows it. Pence is now walking that back and no doubt we’ll have a new law that doesn’t protect religious liberty. Because sex > religion. The Constitution sez.

But to the extent your question is “Tell me now, right now, what the practical application of this law is an every circumstance” it’s a not a fair question. That’s not the way we pass legislation. We pass laws intended to get at a particular issue in a general sense and those laws have unintended consequences. Always. Pretty much every single time. Further, RFRAs by nature require a balancing of interests. The idea of an RFRA is not that religious people can do whatever they want in the name of religion. It’s that the state needs a compelling interest to substantially burden an individual’s religious belief. The sole purposes of the Indiana law, it seems to me, is to reverse the absurd holding in Elane that a photographer can’t rely on a state RFRA in a suit with an individual where the state is compelling his behavior.

Isn’t that exactly what we want to have happen? For a court to ask the question “Is participating in a gay wedding by taking pictures a substantial burden to the exercise of the religion of a Christian/Muslim/Jew? Does the state have a compelling interest to compel religious photographers to participate in that ceremony?”

In NM there is effectively no protection for religious believers against generally applicable laws in light of Smith, a situation their state RFRA was intended to resolve. However, because the court in Elane refused to apply the RFRA, RFRAs need to be expanded to cover businesses and suits between non-state parties. Note, the court in Elane didn’t say, “We have weighed the competing claims and find Elane to be a very bigoted, naughty person who should be punished to the full extent of the law.” Instead the court said, “Whew, this is kind of a tough issue, glad I don’t have to decide it because Smith strips you of your First Amendment protections and the RFRA doesn’t apply because the government isn’t a party to this litigation (even though the government assessed you with Willock’s attorney fees). Sucks to be you.”

Now maybe you think Smith was rightly decided and RFRAs are not needed, but the only categories of people I know who think Smith was rightly decided are drug war crusaders and pathological Jesus haters.

I’m a Canadian, fascinated and horrified by the polarization that seems to be increasing in the US, and in my own country.

Rod, when you complain about the left and its tactics you are complaining about a phenomenon common to any and all sides in debates in the US. It’s just that currently the extreme tactics that are winning the shouting match are not favourable to your position.

Governor Pence set this mess up when he repeatedly refused to say what the law was and was not intended to accomplish. It does not matter how good the law is. Pence left a vacuum when he remained silent on the law’s intent and implications. This vacuum, I think, was intended as a way to allow his base to fill in the blanks, even if they were wrong. Unfortunately, the vacuum has allowed the blanks to be filled in by the other side, to great effect. I get that you see danger in the current situation, but I don’t really understand how it is all the fault of the “left”. It’s the fault of those who pander to their bases and fail to provide leadership and promote respectful debate. Pence is leading by example and the results are a mess.

I think you have a lot more in common with anyone who values and fosters clear discussion and respect for others. You have shown this in this issue by giving examples of those you disagree with nonetheless calmly and rationally affirming the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. You repeatedly speak of the left and use word like “they” and “typical”, which suggests to me that your concern and anger is pulling you away from your rational moorings. The left is no more of a danger than the right, insofar as both are using poor logic and vitriol as a cudgel to further their agenda, thereby subverting the democratic underpinnings of US society. The system is being gamed and the lowest common denominator is winning.

One other note, Franklin, to clarify my earlier comment: I more or less agree with Rod about the logical end game the gay rights movement. I don’t agree with Rod when he puts this struggle in terms of “jihad” and think he paints with too broad a brush.

“if you are not watching and learning, you are a fool.” And if you do not realize that massive and uncontrolled immigration, both legal and illegal, is a crucial part of what even Rod is willing now to call a jihad against Christians, you are a fool. It is all happening faster than most believe.

Franklin, groups such as the ACLJ will take the cases of the religious small business owners on a pro bono basis and then use those folks in their fundraising appeals to the conservative religious community.

The problem with this law is any doofus whatsoever can claim a “sincere religious belief” to act like a jackass against his fellow-citizens in a business environment. Then, when the damage has already been done, the courts are supposed to come along and fix matters, after the burden has been heavily slanted against the plaintiff?

No thank you. This law throws 500 years of public accommodation law on its head. I don’t see what’s so “conservative” about that!

I don’t see radicalism when reading recent media commentary over some of these discrimination issues, instead the original Walter Mitty movie comes to mind (I have not seen the remake). In their imagination they are not debating subtleties over conflicts between different rights, rather they are heroes in some of the fiercest conflicts in modern history, facing grave personal danger as they stand up to tanks, heavily armed policemen and the most brutal regimes. Seriously, look at some of the rhetoric being used, it bears little relationship to what is actually happening.

As someone who as enjoyed a Walter Mitty moment myself on occasion, I can say it usually passes. Just stay calm and gently bring them down to earth.

“I oppose it because some soup kitchen might refuse to serve a transgendered teen who has been kicked out of the family home, because some private ambulance might refuse to pick up a man who has been beaten into a coma because he’s gay, because some private clinic might refuse to treat a woman who has been raped to ‘cure’ her of being a lesbian.”

The first of these might actually happen, I suppose. The chances that either of the other two will happen anywhere in the United States are so low that it degrades the conversation and insults our intelligence to even raise such straw men.

The Gov of CT has come out and stated what we know the Left thinks of Traditionalists:

“Connecticut governor: Mike Pence is a ‘bigot’”

This is a nearly identical replay of the Chick-fil-A imbroglio of 2012 when the mayors of Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco threatened to ban Chick-fil-A restaurants from “their” cities over statements made by the company’s CEO. O where today is the righteous voice of Rahm Emanuel!?

1) Begs the question of what do you mean by “interfering”, as virtually no one advocates for jailing or fining people who teach homosexual acts are sinful. (there is a small fringe that would use this as wedge to remove tax exempt status, but by and large this fringe opposes religion generally, and they are both Wrong and non-representative) However, people do insist on their right to retaliate using their own private economic power and speech. Does the civil law permitting boycotts interfere? And finally, there is the government perhaps chosing not to contract with organizations that teach that to perform government functions, particularly where it will impact that function. E.G. Catholic Adoption Agencies. Is the government obligated to contract with people who believe homosexuality is wrong, even if the government believes it is not.
2) also begs the question of what does “directly participate in events” mean. When I was married I never even met the person who baked our cake. My wife did. We had a standard 3 tier white cake that was dropped off at the reception (or we may have picked it up) prior to the event. The baker certainly did not attend the ceremony, reception, or have anything to do with the event. If baking a cake is directly participating in the event (I’ll admit I’m more sympathetic to photographers), then why isn’t making a bed, letting out the hotel room, selling us the house we own as a married couple, admitting me to my wife’s hospital room, or putting her on my insurance. All acts that roughly equally recognize the fact that we are married under the law, and by not challenging that therefore “affirm” it. Gay couples deserve the same acceptance of the fact that the law considers them married (where it does, and it should everywhere), regardless of anyone’s personal objections thereto. They are of course free to disaprove, to admit to such, to outside of the work context act to oppose it politically and socially. And they should not be punished in their employment for doing so. However, in the work context they aren’t being asked whether it was right that two people are married under the law; they are being asked to act according to the fact that they are. Recognizing that the government affirms gay marriage does not infringe on religious freedom.

” … if you are not thinking about the Supreme Court and the next presidential election — if you are not watching and learning, you are a fool.”

I fear it’s too late for this. Our choices in the next election are likely to be between two candidates with absolutely no intention to appoint justices with a conservative, natural law, view of social issues.

Perhaps long-term, it’s time to sulk in our tents like Achilles, to drive home the message that the Republican’s can’t keep us on their side while disavowing our positions, and they can’t win without us.

panda says:
March 31, 2015 at 12:34 pm
” Why they have so many allies who don’t share in their deviancy, and in fact actively celebrate it, is a hugely perplexing question to me.”

One important hint is that people associate the opposition with people like you.

——————-

It’s sad that vapid ad hominem illogic such as this qualifies as an answer, but I guess that was my point. Many people today value being “nice” over raising healthy children and contributing to a stable society and growing economy.

[NFR: Because I suggest the possibility of civil disobedience, I “implicitly” support armed rebellion against the state? Really?

Er, no. Because you specifically comment on the hypothetical – outlandish as it is – posed by the reader even as the reader posits the possibility of armed rebellion in reference to that hypothetical, without saying anything about the bookends to the hypothetical. At best, this is playing footsie with the notion; one might even argue it grant the commenter plausible deniability.

As I said, no commiepinkoKenyansocialistliberalfascistgayactivist has yet called anyone to arms, and you call us engage in Holy War – as incendiary and hysterical as terms get. YOUR side calls for arms – as they routinely do, in fact, these days – and all we get is a limp, “What me? Heavens forfend!” Really?

TJ,thank you for the correction. I’m limited to posting via my phone during the day, and I often can’t expand my intended meaning adequately.

I do wish to make a general point while I’m here. For me, the biggest frustration is the general hostility against understanding. People in their passionate stances seem to believe that understanding necessarily leads to agreement.

I went to college in Indiana so have a warm spot in my heart for the state; I’d hate to see the economic interests of the people hurt by this squirmish in the culture wars.

The editorial in today’s IndyStar is clear and right on point: Add sexual orientation/gender identity to the state’s anti-discrimination laws while also keeping the new RFRA law in place. We’ve had such protections in place here in RI for at thirty years with no problems that I can think of. This sounds like a good solution but I think the religious far-right will be thrown into a tizzy if that goes forward!

It certainly looks like Gov Pence and the legislature didn’t give much thought to the consequences of the passage of this legislation; the mayor of Indianapolis had lobbied against it, as had a number of CEOs of large employers.

And finally, at the “private” signing of the law were three men identified as representatives of viciously anti-LGBT organizations. How dumb was that?

[NFR: You are off-script here. You’re supposed to say that we “spew” venom. Remember? — RD]

Oops. My mistake. I don’t read any progressive/liberal blogs or websites really, so I didn’t know about the script. But, I didn’t get my copy of the Gay Agenda either, so maybe I am out of the loop. I do, however, read many, many conservative blogs because I feel it is important to see where people who do not share my beliefs are coming from, and in this instance “venom” was the word that popped into my head. In fact, over the last couple of years I have changed my stance from “there is some good in religion” to “religion is in general bad for society”, and I came to that conclusion based solely on the type of commentary that I see from the Christian right.

It will operate just like Illinois law did, during the years Illinois had a RFRA without a protected class designation for sexual orientation.

Thank you for saying this. Before Illinois had sexual orientation as a protected class, it was fairly routine for LGBT people to be discriminated against. Those folks were asked to leave restaurants, bars and other public places, turned down for housing rental, discriminated against on the job (or even fired)….but not anymore.

Anecdote time: in 2003 (before the addition of sexual orientation as a protected class in IL), a contractor attempted to turn me down for work because I was a lesbian.

Except, I’m not a lesbian. Never have been. I’m strictly heterosexual. But “sex” is a protected class nationwide, and “sexual orientation” is not. This contractor didn’t want to hire a woman. But he couldn’t legally refuse to hire a woman; he could legally refuse to hire a lesbian.

Fortunately for me, I’m in the union. When the assistant business manager called me to let me know my job call had been rescinded, I drove over to the union hall and confronted the business manager personally. (we’re friends as well as colleagues). I told him point blank that I had a child to support and “you’re going to fix this or I will.” And I would have—I fixed the refusal of FMLA by a different contractor on a different occasion without the help of the hall (different BM). The BM pointed out the clause in the contract permitting contractors to turn workers down for any reason. I reminded him that “any reason” did not include violations of the Civil Rights Act, and that there was no just cause with which the contractor could defend himself.

The BM was put in a hard spot. He liked and respected me. He also liked and respected the contractor (with whom he went through apprenticeship). But he knew I was serious. He’d been a single parent too. And he knew I would have won—and in the meantime, things would get ugly for all involved.

So he called up the guy and had a chat. Turns out, the guy had nothing against me, personally (he didn’t know me). Or against lesbians. Or, necessarily, against women per se—he just had a really bad experience with the last (and only) woman he hired, and didn’t want a repeat performance. The BM told him there was a difference of “night and day” between me and the other gal, and to just hire me and contact him in a week if there was any problems.

So…he did. And there were no problems. The BM called him at the end of the week and asked him what he thought. The guy bragged about me, and said I’d work out just fine. He apologized to the BM (but never to me. He just looked sheepish and embarrassed around me. *shrug* I gave him a break for an incredibly irrational reason—he looked a lot like my grandfather. *giggle* His actions thenceforth told me he’d learned his lesson, so I let it go. His shame for trying to do the wrong thing—blame a whole class of people for what one person was responsible for—was enough.)

Thing is…if I hadn’t been in a union? I would have just been denied employment. It was a bad time in the local economy, and I’d dealt with on-again, off-again employment, and did lots of traveling (to work in other jurisdictions, which eats up gas money). Discrimination attorneys want money up front that I frankly didn’t have (premature babies are expensive), and how exactly does one go about proving one’s heterosexuality, anyway? I mean, in court?

That’s why those laws exist. Because discrimination still takes place in their absence. Hell, it still takes place in their presence. If I’d had a different BM, one that wouldn’t have intervened with a simple phone call, the only option left to me would have been “nuclear”—formal sex discrimination complaints at the state and local level. And yes, that would have gotten ugly. But being unemployed and without health insurance (remember that premature kid!) is even uglier.

I don’t want to pile on with the cynicism here, but why anyone thinks the Republicans-in-charge actually have the backs of the SoCons is beyond me. You guys just keep getting played.

I remember walking through the bookstore* in the upper middle class white suburban church I attended for a few years in high school. There was a row of books on a shelf, next to commentaries on the Gospels, Bible concordances that referenced the original texts and languages, long studies on the major prophets…just a shelf of books simply titled Reagan with him smiling and waving on the cover. There were dozens of them. They were all gone the next week or so. It took me a couple of years longer to figure out the scam — because I was a lot more naive then, and I eventually did, but that was the first moment I though “huh, I wonder if that’s a good thing” — and it is a scam.

[*]Years earlier one of my best Sunday school teachers reliably informed me that Jesus would overturn the tables and flog everyone with a handmade whip if he turned up and found a bookstore in a Church. Dunno, probably she was right.

I’m just wondering but is there an opportunity here for conservatives to work more with Hispanic and African American communities on this issue. It’s a mystery to me why minorities, women, and lbgt groups always get lumped together. I get that they are all minorities and have been victims of past discrimination but aren’t there issues unique to each group. Why do African Americans and Hispanics always get aligned with lgbt and feminist issues when the fight for those particular causes poses an existential threat to their own communities and concerns. I think there is unexplored potential for conservatives to to bring traditional democratic voting blocs like these into our tent on issues like this. God knows they are the only ones who can still speak on issues like this in a public way without being labeled as homophobic. If conservatives could just get away from the bigbusiness/free market economy conservatism that people like Bush represent I think that there would be opportunities to build bridges. My hope is that the African American community will wake up and realize that they got used the last seven years in the same way that evangelicals got used/co-opted during the Karl Rove/Bush years.

Stephen A. Smith, a popular African American sports writer, recently made an interesting proposal,

Smith believes that every black person in America should vote Republican at least once so that both parties could address their interests.

“What I dream is that for one election, just one, every black person in America vote Republican,” he said. “Because from what I’ve read, and I’m open to correction, but from what I’ve read, Barry Goldwater is going against Lyndon B. Johnson. He’s your Republican candidate. He is completely against the Civil Rights Movement. Lyndon B. Johnson was in favor of it. What happens is, he wins office, Barry Goldwater loses office, but there was a senate, a Republican senate, that pushed the votes to the president’s desk. It was the Democrats who were against Civil Rights legislation. So because President Lyndon B. Johnson was a Democrat, black America assumed the Democrats were for it.”

He also added, “Black folks in America are telling one party, ‘We don’t give a damn about you.’ They’re telling the other party ‘You’ve got our vote.’ Therefore, you have labeled yourself ‘disenfranchised’ because one party knows they’ve got you under their thumb. The other party knows they’ll never get you and nobody comes to address your interest.”

My question is, why? Why is this such a big deal for so many straight people, especially straight people with children?

Kudos to theOtherWill for the Jonathan Haidt answer.

The bigger picture is that liberals have had enough. They’ve had to listen to the ‘crazy uncle’ too long and something finally just snapped.

Rod occasionally likes to ridicule some nut campus liberal who definitely deserves the scorn. But over on DailyKos, almost daily, there’s a quote by an elected Republican politician who has said something incredibly stupid and hateful. (Example from this week: Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt). The liberals have been listening, and they’ve had it.

I’m not claiming this is definitely the turning point, but it may be. Anybody else notice that Rahm Emanuel suggested that companies relocate from Indiana to Chicago? What if more liberal states deliberately targeted the college-educated young? (I favor the slogan, “Escape from Kansas”, pitched from Colorado.)

Liberals sometimes succeed using an economic boycott. Indiana isn’t the last one. Next time it will another issue. Perhaps voter-id.

Here is another question to add to Ross’ which is, unfortunately, not as far-fetched as one would like.

Q. It is now 2019 and America is at war with Putinist Russia. Putinist Russia justifies its war with America, in part, on the gay-positive and anti-religious policies of those in control of American political, governmental, and social institutions. As a matter of national security, are known outspoken social conservative religious interred as potential fifth columnists and traitors, a la the American Japanese of the 1940s?

“The problem with this law is any doofus whatsoever can claim a “sincere religious belief” to act like a jackass against his fellow-citizens in a business environment. ”

take a step back and ask yourself: do you really want the state to use the power of law to prevent people from acting “like a jackass against his fellow-citizens in a business environment”?

Are you really, really sure? Have you thought that through?

Does that include preventing people from being impolite? I would also like to prevent them from picking their nose, and force everybody to take frequent showers.

Earlier in the thread I described this as a millennialist craze. Of course, it does not look like 1793 or 1917 or 1968, but it does share some characteristics. In the immortal words of T.S. Eliot today’s ideologues are trying to create “a system so perfect that nobody will need to be good.” We will force them to be good, by golly!

A few centuries ago people like you would have been out there trying to prosecute adulterers and homosexuals.

Gay marriage is actually going to go away after a period of years. After the current mania has passed and the elite culture has moved on to something else there will be very very few gay weddings. There is a reason this institution did not exist before a decade ago and that reason is that there was not a demand for it. The permanence and other-focus of marriage does not fit the gay lifestyle regardless of what tv says.

Wow. My brother and his husband have been together for nearly 30 years; had their first commitment ceremony more than 25 years ago, and a real-honest-to-goodness marriage two years ago. Next to my own 34-year marriage, it’s the longest relationship in my generation of my extended family.

Someone else on this thread suggested getting to know some people, not as ‘same-sex attracted’ freaks of your stereotypes, but as actual human beings. That’s some very sound advice.

[NFR: What if massive number of churches go on a tax strike, and refuse to pay Caesar his coin? What is the state going to do then? — RD]

Is this the counsel of scripture?

Gay marriage is actually going to go away after a period of years. After the current mania has passed and the elite culture has moved on to something else there will be very very few gay weddings. There is a reason this institution did not exist before a decade ago and that reason is that there was not a demand for it. [NF Rusty: not because it was effing ILLEGAL, apparently.]The permanence and other-focus of marriage does not fit the gay lifestyle regardless of what tv says. Getting involved in a complicated legal situation with another person for whimsical reasons is foolish. In a decade this will be more clear as more and more people who have gay married will resent the forces that encouraged them to enter a legal relationship that is unsuitable for their personal circumstances. The places where gay marriage is most practiced will be the first places to get rid of it [NF Rusty: ??????] or to get rid of the idea of marriage altogether because of this unsuitability.

WOW! Just … wow. Serious non-knowledge from a serious know-nothing. Truly spectacular. But most certainly not motivated by anti-gay animus, only sincerely-held religious belief.

The differences in the wording of the IN RFRA have potential for abuse by those who would discriminate and use religious liberty as cover.

This is what the left is worked up about, but potential is not the same thing as actual abuse. This speaks to the matter of trust between the secular and the religious (and those caught between). Someone in one of these threads mentioned their churchgoing relatives. Mine have bought into the media portrayal of this as Indiana giving religious people carte blanche to do whatever they want to on the basis of religious belief, and they are applauding that there is finally some place in the US where the gays can’t force anyone to accept them, even at the local Taco Bell. So I get firsthand why trust is so hard. It’s the fundamentalist use of laws like this that gets me worried, but I have no idea how prevalent such use would be.

For instance:

In the Hobby Lobby ruling, Justice Alito claimed that the court could not question the sincerity of belief.

Hobby Lobby went further than this — the Court claimed that it could not even question the veracity of the religiously motivated belief on an empirical matter. I have no idea how far it is willing to extend this, but I can tell you that where I come from, “I punched him because he looked at me like a homo” could get you out of trouble with your parents. I do not worry about someone actually mounting an “I won’t serve him because I have a sincere religious belief that he’s gay” defense, but I do expect some cynical religious huckstering to come out of this.

My point is that this kind of mistrust, which I fully cop to myself, makes this kind of escalating preemptive legislation a lot more likely than the kinds of principled compromise we saw in Utah, the “Reddest State In The Union.” Perhaps we could aspire to be as gosh-darn nice as the stereotypical Mormon.

It’s sad that vapid ad hominem illogic such as this qualifies as an answer

It’s not ad hominem. It’s a direct statement that the Actual Witness you choose to make for your ideals and your Faith is what the majority of people will point to when deciding to have nothing further to do with you and yours.

You willfully revel in making Bad Choices, in full public view? Fair enough. It’s a free country, and you’re allowed to be as obnoxious as you wish in representing your interests and expressing your viewpoint. You will, reasonably enough, reap the exact whirlwind that you’ve unwisely chosen to sow.

I guess that was my point. Many people today value being “nice” over raising healthy children and contributing to a stable society and growing economy.

“Gay people cannot raise healthy children” – Check

“Gay people cannot contribute to a stable society” – Check

“Gay people cannot contribute to a growing economy” – Check

“Defending gay people is entirely a matter of being “nice” by weak-willed people, while my side is Actually Serious” – Check

This is your Actual Witness for your Faith. Please proceed, governor.

[NFR: You set my teeth on edge with that concern-trolling about people being a “bad witness” for their faith. Stop it. — RD]

Because bluntly, they aren’t on your side. Even when given the question is the most pro-religious liberty way – 61% of African Americans and 56% of Hispanics believe wedding related businesses should have to provide services to same sex couples.

I’ve seen this sort of hardcore approach to freedom of association before–especially in libertarian circles–and I’ve always wondered about the beliefs behind it

Speaking for myself:

Human beings — all of us, not just old racist cisgendered white Christianist males — are conditioned by evolution to favor our in-groups (generally distinguished by shared biological ancestry, which is what race is all about, but also factors of religion, language, and so forth) and disfavor out-groups. This predilection can be taken to unhealthy extremes — Hitler and all that — but it is not inherently evil or destructive, often beneficial (got us evolved, after all) and in any case an ineradicable fundamental of human nature. Let’s have public policy which works with and through human nature, accentuating its positives and mitigating its negatives, but not attempting to refashion it according to some utopian scheme, such as getting all individual people of every race, religion, and sexual proclivity to like each other and always get along and never have naughty thoughts about out-groups.

Do you think that the free market would magically sort everything out, in terms of dealing with all the potential problems that approach would create, or do you think that you’re in a socially-dominant group that would never be on the losing end of a goods/services exchange?

You consider my proposal to be something new, when a repeal of anti-discrimination laws would be a return to the state of affairs before these laws were enacted. When businesses were permitted to refuse service based on, say, race, many did, but many did not. Businesses will make business decisions. Many, likely most, will decide that forgoing the patronage of certain potential customer groups, especially ones as large as blacks or Hispanics or for that matter evangelical Christians, would cause an intolerable loss of revenue. Others will determine that there is a market for offering a “______s Only” (fill in the blank as you see fit) service.

Look, businesses and properties already do this. Some aim at a mass market, come one, come all clientele; others pitch to a clientele seeking something “exclusive” — a word used unashamedly in advertisements for all manner of goods or services, from resorts to gated communities to luxury vehicles to reservation-only restaurants and on and on. The key is to use money as the criterion of exclusion rather than naughty race, religion, “orientation” and so forth — although let’s not kid ourselves that avoiding non-white (and white trash) riff-raff is a major factor in the appeal of legally permissible (money-based) exclusionary goods and services, especially in housing and education.

It’s great for the rich that they can use money to segregate themselves legally from their out-groups, but I would like the rest of us, of all colors and tribes, to have the same privilege (should be a right).

Rod occasionally likes to ridicule some nut campus liberal who definitely deserves the scorn. But over on DailyKos, almost daily, there’s a quote by an elected Republican politician who has said something incredibly stupid and hateful. (Example from this week: Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt). The liberals have been listening, and they’ve had it.

So we should abridge religious freedom because conservatives drive you up the wall? That is incredibly petty.

Liberals sometimes succeed using an economic boycott. Indiana isn’t the last one. Next time it will another issue. Perhaps voter-id.

Voter id is interesting because it is the ideological obverse of the RFRA debate, but likely with lower stakes. Conservatives are putting a fairly small tax, that could be made elminated if they want voter id badly enough, on a freedom liberals hold to be fundamental, and the primary counterargument is to reaffirm the need to make voting painless and notice that the costs of loose voting regulations are minimal.

Similarly, there is a need to make following one’s conscience painless, and frankly the costs are minimal (discrimination against gays for religious reasons is very uncommon and usually a hard case like Elaine or that Muslim barber Rod mentioned a while back). Grumpy realist and others can continue to speculate unrealistically on this issue, but that is what you should expect here.

Um, public accommodation law has been around for centuries. We borrowed it from the Brits and it’s a part of Common Law.

(It’s the law that says pubs, inns, and public transport can’t just throw you off/out because they feel like it. There’s got to be a reason, and it’s got to be something better than “I don’t serve Episcopalians.” They also have a higher duty towards you than the random guy on the street.)

We NOW have other members of protected classes (sex, religion, national origin, etc.) but it all started with public accommodation law.

As said, I’m surprised that all you conservatives are so eager to trash something that is very, very traditional.

“Q. It is now 2019 and America is at war with Putinist Russia. Putinist Russia justifies its war with America, in part, on the gay-positive and anti-religious policies of those in control of American political, governmental, and social institutions. As a matter of national security, are known outspoken social conservative religious interred as potential fifth columnists and traitors, a la the American Japanese of the 1940s?
”

How about we are attacked by aliens and our only hope is to melt down the vestments of catholic churches in order to forge a super weapon to stop them?
What if the zombie apocalypse occurs and our only option to stop it is to force all children to read Richard Dawkins’ work?

No thank you. This law throws 500 years of public accommodation law on its head. I don’t see what’s so “conservative” about that!

I assume you mean 50 years.

Common accomodation laws are derived from the British law, and go back further than 500 years. In fact, quite a bit of legal legwork was required in the 18th and 19th century in order to overthrow them and enable racial discrimination in inns, taverns, and vehicles. It is true though that the current version of public accomodation laws is much wider than its premodern version.

You consider my proposal to be something new, when a repeal of anti-discrimination laws would be a return to the state of affairs before these laws were enacted.

Thank you for being honest about your actual goals. All of us can look up “Jim Crow era”. Thanks for confirming that this is the relevant period of American history you sincerely want us to consider.

When businesses were permitted to refuse service based on, say, race, many did, but many did not.

Yes. There were even guidebooks published by Negros that made it clear which few towns weren’t “Sundown Towns”, and which few businesses were willing to sell goods to black travelers and which few hotels would (at higher prices!) permit black people to stay overnight. Second-class citizenship at every single turn, enshrined in countless laws and customs across the country.

Thank you for making it clear that you believe this era should be remembered fondly, with pride.

Businesses will make business decisions. Many, likely most, will decide that forgoing the patronage of certain potential customer groups, especially ones as large as blacks or Hispanics or for that matter evangelical Christians, would cause an intolerable loss of revenue.

No. Jim Crow actually happened, and we actually know how it actually played out. With the full power of one-Party legislatures permanently distorting their local Law, second-class citizen groups could be permanently denied equal public access and equal treatment before the Law, and few businesses would dare risk the blowback from the 70% White population to fairly treat the 30% Black population.

And all of this persisted, for generations, because there were multiple entire populations of Whites that thought active apartheid oppression was just peachy.

When actively pining for these bygone days of yore, you would be advised to consider that, right now, you are in an America of 70% not-conservative-Christians. If you really want to pass more State legal regimes that allow 30% minorities to be summarily thrashed at will in the marketplace, and really want to revert to the levels of legal protection for 30% minorities that held in 1920, you will eventually get exactly what you wish for.

A man goes into a bakery owned by a gay man, and asks for a cake with writing, and wants it to be Leviticus 20:13, “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

Is the gay man allowed to refuse service based on the requestor’s religious beliefs?

It’s the same concept as the gay man asking the religious baker to make a gay wedding cake, where refusal is discrimination.

“If the law is enforced as written, rather than enforced as a special Christians-only privilege, then traditionalist Muslim cabbies will be able to refuse service to women traveling alone or to men carrying liquor.”

Only if a court declares it so. All the law does is give these people recourse to a hearing.